The mega fight between Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2) and Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (37-0-1) was an awesome and fun battle to watch, but fans — and both fighters, really — were left disappointed when the ruling from the judges showed a split draw as the decision.
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The most controversial part of the decision was the 118-110 scorecard in favor of Canelo Alvarez, as most people thought that Golovkin had won the fight. However, judge Adalaide Byrd ruled in favor of Alvarez and here is what her scorecard looked like.
The most egregious parts of this scorecard are Byrd ruling for Alvarez in the fifth, eighth, and ninth rounds. Golovkin looked close to finishing the fight in both the fifth and ninth rounds, and Canelo spent much of the eighth round running away and on the clear defensive as GGG landed significant strikes.
The other two judges — Don Trella and Dave Moretti — both ruled in favor of Golovkin in all three of those rounds.
Byrd's performance as a judge was bizarre enough to generate a response from Nevada State Athletic Commission director Bob Bennett, who said that Byrd had a "bad day" judging the fight.
Maybe favoring Canelo by a round would have been fine, but GGG dominated much of the middle of the match and there is no way he only walks away with having won two of those rounds. Even Canelo's corner was telling him prior to the 10th that he probably needed the three rounds "of his life" in order to win, so even his own corner didn't think he was up at that point.
The ruling is significant, as this is the first professional fight in Golovkin's career that he did not win. Golovkin entered the night 37-0 with 33 knockouts in his career, though Alvarez taking him the distance showed that this really was a close contest and not a blowout... in either direction.
Both boxers said afterwards that they would be happy to rematch, and another fight between the two could take place next year.
